About me
Professor Penny Jane Burke is UNESCO Chair of Equity, Social Justice and Higher Education and Director of the Centre of Excellence for Equity in Higher Education (CEEHE) at the University of Newcastle, Australia. She holds the position of honorary Global Chair of Social Innovation at University of Bath, honorary professor at University of Exeter and has held the posts of Professor at the University of Roehampton, the University of Sussex and Reader at the Institute of Education, University of London.
Professor Burke’s personal experience of surviving domestic violence and returning to study has fuelled her tenacious commitment to challenging persistent and insidious inequities in higher education. The praxis-based CEEHE in 2015 was founded upon her development of Pedagogical Methodologies, designed to generate transformative change. Her work has served as a model for scholars and practitioners across the world and has had a profound and transformative impact in the field.
Professor Burke has generated over $4,000,000 in research funding and has published extensively in the field of equity and social justice in education (with over 2100 citations). Her authored books include Accessing Education effectively widening participation (Burke, 2002, Trentham); Reconceptualising Lifelong Learning (Burke & Jackson, 2007, Routledge), The Right to Higher Education: Beyond widening participation (Burke, 2012, Routledge), Changing Pedagogical Spaces in Higher Education (Burke, Crozier & Misiaszek, 2017, Routledge) and Evaluating Equity in Higher Education (Burke, Hayton and Stevenson, 2018, UCL IoE Press). As the recipient of the prestigious UK Higher Education Academy’s National Teaching Fellowship award in 2008, Professor Burke has been dedicated to the development of high-quality educational opportunities for students from underrepresented backgrounds through research, practice and professional learning and her esteem in the international field is indicated by invited addresses across the globe (e.g. Myanmar, South Africa, China, Italy, Spain, India, Serbia, California, Sweden, Greece, Mexico and across the UK and Australia). She was Executive Editor of Teaching in Higher Education from 2010 – 2020 and is now co-Editor of the Bloomsbury Gender and Education Book series. Her standing in Australia is indicated by her invitation by the Minister of Education to join the Equity in Higher Education Panel, tasked with creating a 5-year Roadmap for Equity in Higher Education.